Errol John

Errol John was born in Trinidad in 1924, when it was still a colony of Great Britain. His father, George, had been a famous cricket player who even toured England on an exhibition team in 1923, although by then he was past the prime of his career. John was homeschooled. In 1946, he co-founded a theater group called the Whitehall Players. John moved to England in 1951, part of a mass migration movement that encouraged colonial subjects to immigrate to fill post-WWII labor shortages. John became an active member of the London theater scene and performed in both modern and Shakespearian plays, including playing the title role in Othello in 1962. He also branched out into film, with small roles in movies including The African Queen and The Nun’s Story. As he grew frustrated with the limited roles open to actors of color, he turned to playwriting. In 1957, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl won the Play of the Year award from the British newspaper The Observer; it was produced in London in 1958, in New York in 1962, and around the world in countries as diverse as Iceland, Hungary, and Argentina. In addition, John wrote several other plays and screenplays, although none were ever as famous as Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. John was discovered dead in his apartment in the summer of 1988, shortly after a revival of Moon in London.